


Remember

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extra Treat, Female Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 02:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15378654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: "There's no need for hiding tears, just as you would not hide your heart."Amilyn comforts Rose after the loss of her sister.





	Remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maplemood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/gifts).



Sweat dripped down the back of Rose’s neck though she was doing nothing more than sitting beside her uneaten lunch rations; the thin undershirt beneath her jumpsuit was uncomfortably plastered to her skin.

Not that Rose actually minded. She was seated beneath a canopy of brightly colored trees, the likes of which she could never have imagined before seeing Felucia for the first time, and she loved little better than simply soaking in the planet’s beauty. She rarely ate in the canteen anymore, choosing instead to spend her free minutes outside.

She fingered the medallion around her neck and knew that Paige would have absolutely loved it here.

Rose remembered their long walks together through the D’Qar jungle, Paige delightedly pointing out swooping, chirping birds and then sketching them later, during long hours in the bomber. All Rose had now were those memories, Paige’s journals as lost as Paige herself.

She realized she was crying again and brushed her hand over her eyes. So silly. Like crying did anything. Like she hadn’t cried enough.

“I hope you won’t think me intruding,” said the familiar voice of Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo as she swept nearly soundlessly over to stand beside Rose, “but there’s no need for hiding tears, just as you would not hide your heart.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said, sniffing, wiping her nose. She hurriedly started to stand but Admiral Holdo waved her back down, instead dropping lightly onto the log Rose herself was seated on.

“No apologies, either,” the admiral said in her firm but gentle way, somehow looking perfectly at home with her behind nearly on the ground, wearing her elegant dress. Rose’s hair kept frizzing in the humidity but Holdo’s lavender waves were as lovely as ever. “I’m the one bothering you.”

“Not bothering,” Rose insisted, though her heart was thumping a bit faster in her chest as she tried to sort out what she could say. The admiral had never been anything but kind to her but she was still Vice Admiral Holdo, and Rose was just… Rose.

Crying, on a log, drenched in sweat.

“I’m glad,” Admiral Holdo said. “So you won’t mind if I sit here with you?”

Rose shook her head. Her mind was a flurry of, _what do I do, what do I say,_ all culminating in a horrifying lack of conclusion. Should she bring up some of her work? The admiral had always been interested in her ideas; it was why she had wanted to station Rose on the _Ninka_ in the first place, but –

“You were missing your sister.”

Blinking, Rose gaped at the admiral for a moment and then said, “I miss her all the time. I know it’s been weeks but…”

Admiral Holdo looked up at the high canopy, a little bit of sunlight patching through. “You will miss her your whole life.”

Rose brushed her hand over her leaking eyes again. “Yes.”

“I’ve always found,” Admiral Holdo said, touching her long fingers to Rose’s knee, “that it’s best to allow myself to feel sad, when I need to be. On Gatalenta we were raised to freely embrace and express our emotions, so as to best understand them.”

“But,” Rose said, squeezing her eyes closed, “I have to… The Resistance needs…”

“The Resistance will always need, and you have always given. You need, too, Rose, and you are allowed to need.”

“I miss her so much,” Rose said, and let the tears fall. Somehow she couldn’t mind Admiral Holdo seeing them.

Admiral Holdo gently draped her arm around Rose’s back, holding her like Paige used to, when she was lonely or afraid or sad, when everything seemed hopeless. Paige couldn’t ever do that anymore, would never be there when Rose needed her, and the thought made the tears flow more. Rose didn’t know how to be alone. She had never had to be.

When Rose finally stopped crying, sniffling, dragging her sleeve beneath her nose, she knew she must look like a disaster, red-eyed and tear-streaked, but Admiral Holdo was still holding her, humming quietly, this lovely, soothing tune.

“What is that?” Rose managed, her voice feeling thick and raw.

The admiral smiled at her. “It’s Gatalentan. My mother used to sing it to me.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” Admiral Holdo agreed, and hummed a few more bars. “Maybe some time I can teach it to you.”

“I’d like that,” Rose said, and meant it.

After a moment, Admiral Holdo said, “It’s difficult for the ones left behind, the ones who have to go on, but as long as you remember your sister, she isn’t really gone. Remember her and be sad, remember her and be happy, but just remember her. Remember that she was brave and good and died to save us. Remember that she loves you, because I only had to look at the two of you to know that.”

Rose felt herself tearing up a little again but this time she wasn’t really sad; it was a bittersweet sort of ache, that she should live in a galaxy without Paige. That the galaxy had to find a way without her. She was so, so proud of her sister, and she would miss her for her whole life.

“I’ll always remember her,” Rose said, straightening her back, her shoulder brushing against Admiral Holdo. “Forever. I can’t look at these trees without thinking of her, or at a ship, or a scurrying rodent. That makes me sad, but it makes me glad, too. I guess that doesn’t make sense.”

“Makes perfect sense to me.”

To Rose’s faintly bewildered pleasure, the admiral said that perfectly frankly, like she meant it. “Thank you, Admiral. I know I’m… embarrassing. Thanks for being kind.”

“And I’ve been called odd, so perhaps we understand each other,” the admiral said, resting her hands in her lap, her smile so sweet, and just a little mischievous. “But call me Amilyn, please. We’re not official here, are we? My friends call me Amilyn.”

What would Paige say to that, Rose wondered, that Vice Admiral Holdo should consider Rose her friend?

_I knew she had wonderful taste,_ Rose heard in Paige’s voice, and grinned.

“Okay,” she said. “Amilyn.”

The day somehow seemed brighter.


End file.
